People v. Luna

• Decision Date: 25 April 2013
• Docket Number: Docket No. 1–07–2253.
• Citation: 371 Ill.Dec. 65,2013 IL App (1st) 072253,989 N.E.2d 655
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Juan LUNA, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2013 IL App (1st) 072253
989 N.E.2d 655
371 Ill.Dec. 65

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee,
v.
Juan LUNA, Defendant–Appellant.

Docket No. 1–07–2253.

Appellate Court of Illinois,
First District, Fourth Division.

April 25, 2013.

[989 N.E.2d 659]

Michael J. Pelletier, Patricia Unsinn, Alan D. Goldberg, and Kathleen M. Flynn, all of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Chicago, for appellant.

Anita M. Alvarez, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Assistant State's Attorney, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION
Justice EPSTEIN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

[371 Ill.Dec. 69]¶ 1 Juan Luna and James Degorski were charged with first degree murder for the 1993 shooting deaths of seven people at a Brown's Chicken restaurant in Palatine, Illinois. Following a severed jury trial in 2007, defendant Luna was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to natural life imprisonment. Defendant presses several arguments on appeal: (1) the trial court should have excluded expert testimony that a latent print found on a napkin matched defendant's palm print, or the court should have granted defendant's request for a Frye hearing, because the “controversy surrounding latent print identification” shows that the relevant scientific community does not generally accept the method used to match latent prints to known prints; (2) defense counsel was ineffective for failing to move for a Frye hearing, because testing showed that the amount of DNA recovered from the crime scene was less than 0.5 nanograms, and obtaining a profile from such low amounts of DNA is not generally accepted within the relevant scientific community; (3) this court should discard Frye and adopt [371 Ill.Dec. 70]

[989 N.E.2d 660]

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), for assessing the admissibility of scientific evidence; (4) defendant was denied a fair trial because the prosecutor made improper comments during rebuttal closing argument; and (5) the trial court abused its discretion in denying defendant's motion to admit two out-of-court statements from Casey Sander and Todd Wakefield. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

¶ 2 BACKGROUND

¶ 3 In the early morning of January 9, 1993, Palatine police officers received separate reports that workers from a Palatine Brown's Chicken had not returned home after their shifts. Upon entering the restaurant, police found the bodies of seven persons, all of whom had been shot in the head. Richard Ehlenfeldt and Thomas Mennes were found in the cooler on the west side of the restaurant. The other five, Lynn Ehlenfeldt, Guadalupe Maldonado, Rico Solis, Michael Castro, and Marcus Nellsen, were found in the freezer on the east side of the restaurant.

¶ 4 At the trial, spanning several weeks, dozens of witnesses testified for the State and defendant. We provide a brief overview of the relevant testimony, which we explore in more detail, where necessary, as part of our analysis.

¶ 5 I. Defendant's Statements ¶ 6 A. Eileen Bakalla

¶ 7 Eileen Bakalla testified that on January 8, 1993, James Degorski called and asked her to meet him and defendant in the parking lot of a Jewel grocery store in Carpentersville, Illinois. Bakalla was Degorski's close friend, and she knew defendant; they would visit at Degorski's house and smoke marijuana. When she met them in the parking lot, Bakalla saw Degorski and defendant in defendant's car, along with latex gloves and a canvas money bag. The men got into Bakalla's car, and as she drove them to her home, they told her they had robbed the Brown's Chicken. At Bakalla's home, defendant and Degorski split the money in the bag, which Bakalla estimated at over $1,000. They gave $50 to Bakalla, which she said was repayment for a loan she had given to Degorski. The three smoked marijuana, relaxed for a few hours, and Bakalla drove defendant back to his car. Bakalla and Degorski then drove past the Brown's Chicken restaurant, where she saw numerous ambulances and police cars. The next day, Bakalla met Degorski at a car wash, where Degorski “extensively cleaned” defendant's car. A few weeks later, Bakalla and defendant were at Degorski's house. Defendant smiled as he talked about slitting a lady's throat.

¶ 8 Bakalla testified that on November 25, 1995, a police officer investigating the murders asked her to go to the Palatine police station. She went with Degorski and defendant, who had been an employee at the Brown's Chicken. Bakalla told a police officer that she was with Degorski and defendant at her house on the night of the murders, and they found out about the murders the next morning. Bakalla testified that only some of that was true. Bakalla admitted that, in exchange for her testimony, the State's Attorney's office promised Bakalla that she would not be prosecuted for “obstruction of justice” or “concealment or accessory after the fact.” The judge instructed the jury to view Bakalla's testimony “with caution.”

¶ 9 B. Anne Lockett

¶ 10 Anne Lockett testified that in 1991, when she was 17 and still in high school, she met defendant and Bakalla through Degorski. Defendant, Degorski, and Lockett used to drink and smoke marijuana together. Lockett, who used others drugs [371 Ill.Dec. 71]

[989 N.E.2d 661]

like PCP and LSD, started dating Degorski in 1992 when she was 17. On January 7, 1993, she was admitted to Forest Hospital after she attempted suicide. A few days after she was admitted, Degorski called her at the hospital. Lockett testified that after the phone call, she watched the evening news. The lead story was the Brown's Chicken murders.

¶ 11 After she was discharged from the hospital on January 25, 1993, Lockett went to Degorski's house. Defendant was there. Degorski asked Lockett if she wanted to know what happened at Brown's Chicken, and Lockett said yes. Lockett testified that “they” told her that they went to the Brown's Chicken with pockets full of bullets. Degorski had a .38–caliber revolver. They went in around closing and defendant ordered chicken, which angered Degorski because he was worried about leaving greasy fingerprints. Lockett testified that they told her they put on gloves in the bathroom. The men blocked the back exit door with a wedge so that no one could run out the back exit.

¶ 12 Lockett testified that both men admitted shooting the victims with Degorski's gun. At one point, one of the Brown's employees ran through the kitchen, jumped over the counter, and was shot. They told her one of the boys who was left in the cooler had vomited French fries before he died. Defendant demonstrated how he cut the throat of “a woman who made him mad, something about the safe.” Afterward, they cleaned up and disposed of their clothing, shoes, and the gun. Degorski threatened to kill Lockett if she said anything, and he told her that because she had been in the hospital at the time, he was going to use Bakalla as an alibi.

¶ 13 In March 2002, Lockett eventually recounted to a friend what Degorski and defendant had told her. That same month, after the friend had gone to police, Sergeant Bill King of the Palatine police department contacted Lockett. Lockett admitted that she did not come forward earlier, even when Martin Black, a friend of hers, was arrested for the murders.

¶ 14 Lockett testified that her drug and alcohol use continued until 2004, when she was sent to “detox” after arriving to work intoxicated. Lockett relapsed a year later, but, at the time of trial, she had been sober for one year. She denied significant memory or cognitive difficulties, but when she testified before the grand jury, Lockett read from a statement the prosecutor's office had typed out.

¶ 15 C. Defendant's Videotaped Statement

¶ 16 Following his arrest on May 16, 2002, defendant gave a videotaped statement that he and Degorski went to Brown's Chicken to commit a robbery. Assistant State's Attorney Darren O'Brien testified that on May 17, 2002, he spoke with defendant, who after waiving his Miranda rights, agreed to give the statement. The statement was played for the jury.

¶ 17 Defendant stated that on January 8, 1993, he and Degorski planned to rob the Brown's Chicken in Palatine; they chose the restaurant because defendant had worked there and knew there was no alarm. They decided to go there “at closing time like around 9:00 o'clock” because fewer people would be there and because there would be money at that time since “everybody was doing their counts to make deposits for the bank or just to count and leave some in there in the safe.” At around 9 p.m., defendant and Degorski drove to the restaurant, parked “on the north side of the building,” and then “walked by the west side of the building to walk inside, by the west side, double side doors to walk in there.” Defendant ordered “four or five pieces of chicken,” and [371 Ill.Dec. 72]

[989 N.E.2d 662]

the two walked “on the west side of the building” to sit down at “the first booth next to the garbage can.”

¶ 18 Defendant and Degorski then put on latex gloves and decided to go ahead with the robbery. Defendant approached Rico Solis, who was mopping the floor, and told him to go to the back of the restaurant. Degorski fired a shot and told everyone to get on the floor. One employee tried to jump over the counter, and Degorski shot him. Degorski took the man into “the west side cooler,” and at some point, took Richard Ehlenfeldt, one of the owners, into the cooler. Degorski then fired several shots.

¶ 19 Defendant kept an eye on the five other employees until Degorski ordered them into the freezer. Degorski gave defendant a knife and told him to have the “lady owner” (Lynn Ehlenfeldt) get the money out of the safe, but “with everything going all wild and crazy,” defendant “got caught up in the moment and * * * cut her on her throat.” Degorski then handed the gun to defendant, took some money out of the safe and dragged Lynn Ehlenfeldt into the freezer. When...